Superboy Prime: Another View
by JasonSpidey
Summary: What if Superboy Prime hadn't been forced into being the ultimate villain of Infinite Crisis? What if he'd stayed true to his character? Basically, my take on how I believe things should have gone. Follows Infinite Crisis up until IC issue 5.
1. Chapter 1

_You have to keep living your life._

That's what he'd been told. By nobody less than Superman, too. Not the Superman he'd known for so long, a man old enough to be his grandfather; nor the Superman he'd first met twenty years ago, a man who he'd grown up admiring, despite his similar name. The Superman who'd given him this advice, someone had once explained it to him, was _based_ on that first Superman, but was a different man. Clark could understand what was meant by that, but it still didn't seem right. People shouldn't be based on each other, it seemed. Everybody is different, everybody unique, his parents had taught him. How can you be based on someone else?

Clark tried to push the confusion from his brain, shaking his head to clear the thoughts. It was enough to boggle anyone's brain. Born in 1970, he'd spent the first sixteen years of his life an ordinary boy like any other. He'd grown up in a small town off the New Hampshire coast. His parents, who'd adopted him as a child, both worked. He had a girlfriend, Laurie, who he'd known since he was a little kid. Everything had been the way it should have been – ordinary.

Except for the fact that he'd been saddled with the name Clark Kent.

It had been a pain sometimes, living with a name so famous and with such a stigma attached. The jokes had been non-stop at times. But, eventually, he'd come to live with it. He even began it kind of like it. He'd dream at nights that maybe, like his namesake, one day he'd be able to fly through the sky or lift ocean liners from the seas with his bare hands.

But until one summer night in 1986, he'd never thought it would come true.

To this day, he didn't know what had triggered the sudden change. Perhaps it had been the oncoming presence of Halley's Comet which had changed the solar system somehow. Maybe his body had stored up enough solar radiation by then. Or maybe it had something to do with the great Crisis brewing across the universe which had been affecting even his world. But, all of a sudden, he found that he could do all those things he'd always dreamed about. He could fly. He was strong. He was fast. He could shoot heat from his eyes, see through walls, and hear someone talking half a world away if he listened hard enough.

But things only got stranger. He met the man who he was named after, a man who was supposed to be only fiction, invented by two teenagers fifty years earlier. He left his family, his friends and his universe to help Superman fight a menace which threatened to tear the universe apart. He'd watched as the force caused havoc, killing people who only days before he'd thought to be fiction. He'd watched as his world died, erased silently along with countless others as thousands of universes were combined into one.

That should have been the end for him. But the universe wasn't done with the boy who'd been dubbed Superboy-Prime. Along with another Superman - an older Superman – and his Lois Lane, he'd been pulled into a pocket of reality created by a young man, Alexander Luthor, whose powers made Clark's look like nothing in comparison. How long he was in the pocket dimension, he had no idea. Time worked differently there. They were outside time, as Alex had explained it, so they weren't affected by it. Clark didn't age. He never would get the chance to be Superman. And even if he did…who would he be Superman for? There was nobody to save in his little slice of "heaven." He'd been given these amazing powers, and he wanted to do something good with them. He'd wanted to have the chance to have a purpose.

It had been that desire which had allowed Alex to twist his mind, to manipulate him. Clark hated thinking about it. He had been used, brainwashed into causing horrible destruction. Once he'd broken free of the "heaven" Alex had created, Alex had asked him to execute certain tasks. Moving planets. Destroying things. Hurting people. Millions of people had died, indirectly, because of his actions.

But it had taken death by his own hand to break him loose of Alex's manipulations. He'd gone after, in a jealous rage, the new universe's Superboy, a young man who'd had chances Clark had never gotten. He'd gotten to have a life as a Superboy. When he'd been outside of time, Clark had watched as this Superboy took his powers for granted, using them carelessly, acting foolish and headstrong. _Not right_, Clark had thought. His parents had taught him that power was a thing to be respected, not abused or made light of. Granted, they'd been talking about driving their Buick LeSabre for the first time and not punching out super-villains, but the point remained. This Superboy was doing everything wrong. For a little while, he'd started to get a grip on reality, and started acting mature – until he was turned against his friends by a Luthor. At the "time," Clark had wondered how one so powerful and like himself could be manipulated. He'd told himself that, had it been him, he would have broken free. It was a comment which would come back to haunt him many a time since.

So, when he'd had the chance to confront this "Connor Kent," as he was calling himself, Clark had been…rash. Manipulated by Alex into expressing a twisted version of his own jealousy, Clark had attacked Connor, savagely beating him with ease that surprised even Clark. Even when a small army had come to Connor's aid and attacked Clark, he'd been able to stop them easily. Too easily.

Because it was during this that he'd spilled blood for the first time.

He'd killed. At first, it had been an accident; he'd lost control. After so much time in that prison, he'd forgotten just how powerful he was in the real world. When they'd come on again, seeking revenge, instead of simply lying back and conceding defeat Clark had struck back on his own, killing more people without realizing what he was doing.

It wasn't until he'd been snatched away by the Flashes and brought into a dimension where he was unaffected by Alexander's manipulations that he'd been able to see how he'd been played. It had taken weeks, in his time, to convince the Flashes that he was genuine in his remorse and that he wanted to make things right. It might have been far longer, had they not seen the forces of Earth struggling under the onslaught of Alexander's forces. Alex was playing God, something no man or Superman had the right to do. Clark had killed a few people by accident, but Alexander was erasing people from history itself. From yet another prison, Clark had watched as he saw bad things happen outside – and yet again, he wanted to do something about it. But this time, he knew where to draw the line – what he had to do.

There had been 3,967 Earths in the sky when the Flashes released Clark from his prison in order to allow him to stop Alex from destroying everything. He'd managed to distract the forces which Psycho-Pirate had sent after Connor, Wonder Girl and Nightwing long enough for them to stage a last-ditch attack on Alex. Clark had watched through a mind-controlled Martian Manhunter's torso as the already badly wounded Connor was torn apart by Alex's powers. He'd screamed along with Wonder Girl and Nightwing as the other Superboy's dying body had slumped to the ground. And it was Clark who'd thrown off some of the most powerful beings of that world as if they were ragged clothes in order to stop Alex from ever hurting anyone again.

But Alex had had a backup plan. The last chunk of Krypton-Prime in existence, he'd said as he held the green gem out in front of Clark. Clark had never felt anything like it. It was a hundred stomach flues hitting at once, with a thousand migraines in for good measure. He'd known sickness during the years of his life he'd spent as a normal boy, but never like this. This was killing him. He'd thought to himself, _I'm sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Laurie. I couldn't do it. I'm not Superman. And I'll see you again before I ever become Superman. _

But he'd been wrong. That old man who he'd spent so long with – a year? Twenty? Ten billion? – in the prison was back, and he was perhaps even madder than Clark was. The Superman of Earth-2, the first Superman, had lost his wife to Alexander's manipulations. Clark knew that the love between Superman and Lois Lane was the stuff of legends; he'd been reading about it in the comics for years. _In the movie, Superman had reversed time itself to save Lois Lane from death. If he can't bring her back…what will he do?_

Clark could still remember the look on Christopher Reeve's face when he'd found Lois Lane dead. When Clark had seen it in the theater for the first time, it had sent a chill through his eight-year-old heart. But the look on this older Superman's face was far, far worse. He'd watched this Superman melt the last chunk of a birth world Clark never knew or cared about into vapor before wrapping his hands around Alexander's neck and throwing him into space. The Superman had looked at him one last time before he'd taken off after Alex. Somehow, Clark had known it was the last time he'd see the man who started it all. Had it not been for that man, he never would have lived with years and years of ridicule and mockery for his name. He'd probably be with his family right then, either dead or alive, instead of on a world he didn't know with people he didn't understand.

But it didn't really matter.

With the kryptonite gone, his powers had returned, and Clark found himself a Superboy again. But his super-hearing told him that, very soon, he might be the only one left. So he'd kneeled down beside Connor Kent and told him one thing.

"I was wrong," Clark had said as he'd stared into the eyes of the boy he could have been. "You are Superboy. And you're a much better one than I am."

Clark fully expected Connor to not say anything; he was pretty far gone. Clark could see the shattered bones, torn blood vessels spilling into organs. But Connor, for the last time, had surprised him.

"Thanks," he'd whispered. "But you still look like a tool."

Clark had smiled, but only for a moment as Nightwing told him and everyone else something he should have already expected. The earths were still multiplying; within minutes, they'd go critical, and take the universe out with them. They had to stop it.

Clark had known what to do. He ordered everyone out of the tower, without hesitation. They'd refused, at first, but when Connor had weakly told them to go along with him, the heroes had quickly abandoned the building. Clark knew how to stop it; though he'd feigned stupidity, he'd watched Alex build the tower knowing full well which parts were more important than others. He knew which things to unplug and which circuits to jam to keep the tower from wiping out humanity.

Finally, when it was all done inside, Clark had flown a good mile away from the tower, parked himself in midair, closed his eyes – and remembered.

He remembered the screams as people had died during that first Crisis. Nobody remembered it anymore, except for three others beyond himself, but he'd never forget. It was so much like the terror he could hear even then, coming in from all corners of the globe as people felt their planet collapse.

He remembered his parents, people who never had a child of their own flesh and blood but had raised him as if he were anyway. He remembered the look on their face the last time he'd seen them, before being whisked away forever.

He remembered Laurie, who he'd always loved. He'd never even had the chance to make love to her. It was silly, maybe, but it meant something to him.

He remembered seeing them die on this world, never having a chance.

He remembered how Alex manipulated The Superman, twisting the original man who'd been such a force for good for millions of people into a tool for his own evil means.

He remembered Connor Kent, manipulated into hurting his friends by a Luthor.

And he remembered the way he himself was twisted by Alex, forced to do things that were so unlike him. He remembered how he'd been made to kill, to hurt, to ruin lives. How Alex had taken advantage of everything he believed in and used it against Clark.

When Clark opened his eyes, they were glowing hotter than anything short of the core of a star.

And with a scream, he'd blasted all that frustration and anger into the tower's core.

The force of the blast had surprised even him. Ten miles away, where the other heroes were, it whipped up five-hundred mile-per-hour winds so fierce that only Martian Manhunter's shape-shifting body had saved them from being blown away. The roar had echoed for a thousand miles. But Clark hadn't been swayed. He'd been ready.

As the dust cleared, Clark, along with the others, had looked up in the sky, hopefully – and seen what they wanted to see. Just stars. No other Earths to be found. The Crisis was over.

But The Superman was gone, too.

Clark had shot into orbit to look for him, but there was neither hide nor hair of either him or Alex. All that was left, Clark had found, was his cape. It looked as though The Superman had torn it off on his own, rather than anything else. But other than that…there was no trace of his existence.

It was while he was in space that Connor had died. He'd rushed back as quickly as he could, but it was to no avail. Superboy was dead. Long live Superboy.

Clark had stayed away from the body upon his return to the ground. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman had all arrived by now, and he didn't want to risk a confrontation with any of them. There'd been enough pain for one day, he figured. Clark could hear Superman's sobs as he cradled Connor's broken body, and that was pain enough.

So it had surprised him when a couple of hours later, Superman had sought him out. Clark had been sitting on a mountaintop fifty miles away, just stroking The Superman's cape, when he'd felt a tap on his shoulder. Clark had expected Superman to be bringing him in for murder (along with the Justice League as backup), but he was wrong.

Superman had just wanted to thank him for trying his best to save Connor.

Clark had told Superman that there wasn't any point in saying thanks; he'd failed, after all. Connor was dead. Superman told him that it was the fact that he'd tried which counted.

"Redemption is a rare thing in this world," Superman had told him. "But whatever evils you may have done, pal…you redeemed yourself for them today. You saved the universe. We all have our demons, things in our past we wish we hadn't done…but we can't let those hold us back. We have to hope that others will forgive us, and just move on doing the best we can. You have to keep living your life."

_Living your life._

_Problem is, I don't know what my life is anymore._

That conversation was weeks behind Clark now, and he still wasn't sure.

_What am I?_

Last survivor of a dead world twice over.

A kid with the name of a superhero.

An orphan without friends or family.

A man with the powers of a God.

But, most of all, he was a sixteen year old boy named Clark.

_Almost seventeen, _he realized. His birthday was coming up. As he thought about it for a second, he chuckled. He had no idea how old he really was anymore. He felt sixteen, but he'd been born 36 years ago – and since then, he'd seen thirteen billion years of history. You're only as old as you feel, his father had often said, but Clark didn't think he'd meant it quite like that.

He sucked in a deep breath of the fresh air, crisp and clean at twenty thousand feet. He didn't really need to breathe, but it was instinctive by now; he'd spent so long doing it, he just did it like anyone else unless he thought about it. The yellow sun felt good against his skin.

_Who knows what the future will hold, _he thought. _But there's no point in looking back. _


	2. Chapter 2

He hoped they'd be nice.

At least, some part of Clark did. After all, these people were supposed to be his new family, right? Supposed to take care of him. But they weren't his family. They couldn't be. They were just a random group of people taking him in.

In the passenger's seat of the Chevy, Clark let out a snort. _Take care of him. _In a very real sense, he didn't need taking care of. He didn't need to eat. He didn't need to rink, or breathe, or sleep anymore. Not since…not since the last time he'd been happy. But he still did, as much because it still connected him on some level to those people he'd had in his life. Because without his humanity, he'd just be…power. Just like Alex.

And that was the last thing he wanted.

And it was also why he knew he needed some people to be around. Because without something to hold him down, he'd probably just fly off into space and end up going mad in the depths between the stars. Even with his speed, it would take four and a half years to reach the nearest sun – and that one was red. Red sun hadn't affected him the first time, almost two lifetimes ago, but he didn't want to chance it again. Slowly dying in space as his powers slipped away under Beta Centauri's light was a chilling thought, and Clark quickly pushed it from his mind.

_Stay here._

Because there had to be a little of his Earth in this one, didn't there? If all the worlds in the whatever-verse had combined together into this one, some of Earth-Prime had to be there. Maybe he could find it. But would he even know it when he found it?

The car slowed to fifteen miles an hour as the social worker pulled off the road and up into the driveway of his soon-to-be foster family. _Foster kid. _It sounded dark, ugly in Clark's mind. He was never supposed to be a foster kid. Adopted, maybe, but that was different. Adopted meant your parents just couldn't have kids of their own. Foster meant your dad was a drunk, or your mother a whore. It meant you were beaten. It meant the world didn't expect much of you, just hoped that you could prove yourself to at least turn out to be a reasonably benign member of society.

_I am not a foster child._

_I am Clark Jerome Kent. Son of Naomi Clarke Kent and Jerome Thornton Kent._

Who didn't exist anymore.

What a messed up world it was.

The house seemed nice enough, Clark thought as he shut the door of the car behind him. He took a minute to survey it on the outside. Pretty typical ski town home, kind of 70's, walls the color of dark wood. Probably nicer inside than it was outside. Clark pulled the eyeglasses off his face and cleaned them on his shirt, something he'd found himself doing with surprising regularity since he'd started wearing them. It was just a precaution, Superman had warned him, to make sure that nobody ever made any connections between the Superboy who tore up Smallville and Keystone City and Clark Kent, average sixteen-year old from New England. Clark had appreciated the way this Superman had tiptoed around the fact that Clark had a) killed and maimed people, b) caused massive destruction, c) lost his whole family, and d) was being forced to live in foster care. The Superman he'd known in that prison wouldn't have danced around it; he would have been much more blunt about what Clark had done.

When Superman had asked him where he wanted to be, Clark had told him he wanted to be somewhere kind of like where he'd grown up. He'd been hoping for New Hampshire, maybe even Cape Cod, but the best Superman had been able to do was central Vermont. It wasn't all that easy, Superman had explained; not just any family would be willing – even on a subconscious level – to take in a superpowered teenager. Tests had to be done. Mental scans, all done without the knowledge of the people being scanned. This family turned out to be the most compatible.

Clark gulped. A strange thought leapt into his head.

_I hope they like me._

"He's here! Everybody ready?" The voice from within came through strong, deep, in Clark's ears, cutting above the ever-present background noise that Clark had grown accustomed to. There was a collective thud-thud-thud of feet as the people inside headed for the door, and Clark let out the breath he realized he'd been holding in.

The door opened, and one by one, out spilled the O'Connell family. They social worker had given Clark their names, but not their pictures, so he had to guess who was who. It wasn't hard. The tall, large man with the mustache would be Rich, the father. The social worker had said Rich was a hockey fan; Clark could tell from the Bruins jacket Rich was wearing that the social worker had been spot on. Clark never really liked hockey that much.

Beside him was Julia, his wife. Surprisingly tall – probably nearly five-foot-nine – a pair of rimless glasses sat perched over her nose. She was unexpectedly pretty, Clark realized with a bit of embarrassment. She was an accountant, but she didn't look like it.

Next in line was their son, Leo. He, again, was taller than he'd expected – Clark was sensing a pattern here – but lanky where his father was burly. Leo, they'd said, was Clark's own age – only a couple months younger. With a freckled face, a short hair cut, and surprisingly high cheekbones, he looked like a potential Abercrombie and Fitch model – in four or five years.

(Clark hadn't known what Abercrombie and Fitch was until just a few weeks before.)

Finally, there was the surprise of the bunch. Taylor, the girl of the family, was nineteen – a freshman in college, she went to Middlebury College a little over an hour away. Hockey scholarship. After hearing that, Clark had immediately pictured a six-foot tall, two-hundred pound lesbian with shoulders wider than his and an army-close crew cut.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

She was beautiful.

Tallish, maybe, but not more than five-seven. Again, those high cheekbones and freckles, like her brother and mother. Brown hair, streaked with gold, flowed down her neck. A body like he'd never seen; lean, toned, but still curvy in all the right places. And eyes…hazel eyes, like nothing Clark had ever seen. Strong eyes.

He remembered something he'd once read somewhere, back before he'd become Superboy. _Every Superman has his Lois Lane._

Clark gulped. This was one thing he hadn't been expecting.

"Ah, Mister O'Connell!" the social worker exclaimed, gazing up at the tall man on the deck beside his family. Lined up the way they were, they reminded Clark of the von Trapps for some reason. Perhaps they realized just how silly they looked too, because the family quickly descended from their posts along the deck and came down to the driveway where Clark was. He could hear their hearts beating, racing. They were nervous, too.

"You must be Clark," Rich said, and stuck out a kind hand which Clark shook gently. "I'm Rich. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," Clark said softly, faking a smile. All of a sudden, he realized how much he hated this.

Julia, instead of shaking his hand, reached up and gave him a big hug. "I'm Julia," she said as she squeezed him tightly. "I'm going to take care of you, okay? You won't need to worry about a thing."

He wanted to say, _No shit, lady. I've faced the Anti-Monitor. I fought alongside heroes you'll never know existed. I've battled and beaten beings more powerful than you can understand…including myself. _

And that was all since his parents had…gone away. But he didn't say it, because she wouldn't believe it or understand it if he did. So far as the O'Connells were concerned, Clark Kent (_no relation to the reporter, but I do get that a lot_) had lost his family six months earlier in a car accident. On this world, the people who should have been his parents had died in a car accident, so it was sort of true.

On the other hand, it was completely false.

Out of the corner of his eye, Clark saw Leo and Taylor roll their eyes at their mother's behavior. He couldn't help but smile a little in their direction, as if asking them playfully, _Is she always like this?_

They both smiled back. Good sign.

"Hey," Clark offered to the two teenagers once Julia had let go of him. It was the standard teenage greeting in 1986, and it was just as true 20 years later.

"Hey," they offered back, one at a time.

"I'm Leo," Leo said, "and this-"

"Taylor," she cut him off. "I can introduce myself, you jerk."

"Don't call me a jerk, you jerk." Leo playfully slugged his sister in the arm; Clark's eyes went wide, but she just slugged him right back.

"Guys!" Julia's voice was scolding, but Clark couldn't help but smile as he looked away from the commotion. It was going to be odd, getting used to having siblings.

_Except they're not your siblings._

There was a click behind Clark, and he turned around to see the trunk lid of the social worker's Impala raise into the air on gas cylinders.

"Go ahead and grab your stuff, Clark," the social worker said. "I'm afraid I have to get going, but there'll be somebody to come by and check up on you tomorrow. You gonna be okay?"

"Sure," Clark said. The O'Connells seemed about as nice as he could have hoped for, and besides, it wasn't like they could do anything to really hurt him. He grabbed his backpack out of the trunk of the car and swung it over one shoulder as he closed the trunk lid with the other hand. "Thanks for everything."

The social worker smiled. "Take care," he said, before climbing into the driver's seat and cranking the engine. Clark turned back to the family before him as the car backed down the drive. They were looking at him a bit funnily, and his heart sank. _Oh, God, I've gone and done something wrong already, they're already judging me – _

"Is that…all you have?" Rich asked, obviously the question on everyone's mind.

Clark breathed a mental sigh of relief. He hadn't realized how odd it must look, all his possessions in this world in one backpack. "Yeah, this is it."

"Well, then," Julia said, "why don't you come on in and get settled."

The room they'd given him was very nice.

It wasn't all that big, but it was on the corner of the house, so there was a window overlooking the back yard and one looking towards the trees between the house and the road. Light from the warm lamps bounced off the peach-painted walls, over the old wooden desk in the corner and onto the double bed pushed to one side of the room. Someone had been nice enough to put a poster for Star Wars on the wall – the original, not those crappy new ones Clark hadn't seen but had heard were terrible – from both Superman and Batman, no less. Clark placed the backpack on the floor and dropped onto the bed. It was soft. Clark was glad for that.

He sat up and put the backpack next to him on the bed, unzipping it gently and taking out, one by one, its contents.

A spare pair of blue jeans with a red tee shirt, wrapped around some extra socks and underwear. Other than the clothes he had on him, they were the only normal clothes he had. Superman had bought them out of his own reporter's salary, just for Clark, a fact which made him feel a bit…spoiled.

A laptop computer, Apple, MacBook Pro 15.4" model. It seemed so high-tech next to the ones his father had used to repair. Then again, computers had come a long way since Jerry Kent had opened his at-home computer repair business in 1982. Clark didn't know what he'd use it for, but he figured he could find a good use for it.

A small bag of toiletries: toothbrush, floss, soap, shampoo, deodorant. The deodorant was force of habit.

The torn remains of his old Superboy costume. It was still wearable, if barely, but it meant more than that. It was, other than himself, the only remnant of Earth-Prime left, and he wasn't about to throw it away.

A black T-shirt, rolled up. Clark solemnly unrolled it, unfurling it until the red outline of the Superman symbol on it was completely visible. It had been Connor Kent's; Clark had asked Superman if he could have it as a way of showing his respect.

And, finally, a long red cape. The Superman's cape. The last known relic of the first superhero.

"So, what do you think of him?"

Clark's head turned at the sound of the hushed voice a floor down. It was Leo's voice. Clark glanced downwards, towards the sound's general direction, and stared through the floor and walls until he could see Leo in the living room talking with Taylor.

"He seems all right. Nice enough," she said honestly.

"How can you tell? He's barely said ten words." Leo seemed angry, and Clark could understand why. Clark was an invader into Leo's territory – direct competition. Clark would have been angry, too, under the circumstances.

"Come on. He's lost his family. He's got nobody left. He spends a couple months bouncing around the foster care system before he gets here. This is probably pretty normal. I'd be more worried if he was talking a mile a minute," Taylor said.

Leo still seemed unsatisfied. "I know. It's just…something about the guy…"

Taylor reached out and put her hand on her brother's shoulder, and Clark found himself surprisingly jealous. "Just try and think about how we're helping him. He seems like a good person…he's just lost a lot, and he needs something to hold onto. That's what we are, now."

"_That's what we are, now."_

Ten thousand feet above Smithville, Vermont, Clark kept running her words through his head. That's what he had now. Two "parents," people who weren't his parents. Two "siblings," who weren't his siblings. A "home" that wasn't his home.

_Home._

He was already moving, as soon as the thought crossed his mind. He'd been putting it off ever since the Crisis, but it was time to see his old town. Winnicut Mills, New Hampshire, was only about 120 miles as the crow flies from Smithville. He figured he could make it there and back well before the O'Connells started getting worried about his "walk in the woods."

The sky blasted against his face as Clark accelerated into the wind, rosy clouds rushing by as he shot away from the sun towards the Atlantic. Clark loved the flying. It was the best part of being who he was. Even going slow enough to make sure that he didn't tear up his clothes (his protective aura, which he could have sworn he didn't have when he first got his powers, only could do so much to protect loose-fitting T-shirts and jeans), it only took thirty seconds to reach his old home town.

From up in the sky, it didn't seem too different. But it was only when he saw the cemetery that he realized how much things had changed.

Clark dropped to the Earth in front of a pair of headstones, flat granite monuments to the people buried underneath.

_Jerome Kent: 1952 – 1987._

_Naomi Kent: 1954 – 1987._

But they weren't his parents. Clark couldn't admit that they were. Like this world's Superman, they were _based _on his parents perhaps, but they weren't his mother and father. They couldn't be.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" he asked the headstones. "Well, I didn't know you, either. I'm from a different world. Where I came from…is different than here. There weren't super-people fighting all over the world. People didn't die by the millions in horrible acts of super-war. There were just…men. Not Supermen. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be a part of that world. Maybe I was supposed to be your son, in this world. But…we'll never know, will we?"

He sighed. "I'll never know."

Clark glanced up, scanning the rows of tombstones for the one he was looking for. _There_ – ten rows up, eighteen stones over. He was there in the blink of an eye.

_Laurie Lemmon. 1970 – 1987._

She would have been thirty-six by now. Just like he should have been. Clark didn't know if they would have gotten married or not; hell, he didn't know if they would have made it until junior prom or not. Most high school relationships didn't last, even ones with your oldest friend.

_But I'll never know, will I?_

"If you can hear me, Laurie…my Laurie…I hope that you're all right, wherever you are. I hope I'll get to see you again someday."

But Clark didn't see the point in speaking to the dead any longer. At least, no point in standing in a cemetery and doing it. Theoretically, they could hear him anywhere, he supposed; it wasn't exactly like he needed a phone booth.

_I should head back, _he thought, when something caught his eye.

_Tom Standward, 1971 - 1987._ He'd been in Clark's classes since first grade. He happened to die, too?

Clark began to glance up and down the rows of headstones, looking for names he recognized.

_Stanley Gonzaga, 1964 – 1987._

_Francis Tanaka, 1956 – 1987._

_Susan Gingers, 1970 – 1987._

_Harry Dervish, 1952 – 1987._

It didn't make sense. These were all people who he'd know, people who'd lived on his Earth. Alex had said the universe didn't discriminate. Why would they all have died?

Clark kept counting, faster and faster, until he'd scanned every name in the cemetery three times over. The count kept coming up the same. Two hundred and eleven names of people he'd known. Out of them, seven had been people who he'd known had died while he was still alive on his Earth; their dates of death matched up with what he remembered.

But out of the other 204….all of them had died in 1987.

It didn't make sense. If everyone from the planets which had been merged in the original Crisis had been reported on this New Earth as having died, there should have been a hundred billion tombstones with that year on them. That wasn't the case, Clark knew. So, one question kept coming back to him.

_Who wiped out the remains of Earth-Prime?_


End file.
